The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

Paris. Give me thy torch, boy: hence, and stand aloof:
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
2935Under yond yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,
2940As signal that thou hear'st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.

Page. [Aside] I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.

[Retires]

Paris. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew,—
O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones;—
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans:
The obsequies that I for thee will keep
2950Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.
[The Page whistles]The boy gives warning something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
To cross my obsequies and true love's rite?
2955What with a torch! muffle me, night, awhile.

[Retires]

[Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR, with a torch, mattock, &c]

Romeo. Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
2960See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light: upon thy life, I charge thee,
Whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death,
2965Is partly to behold my lady's face;
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone:
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry
2970In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:
The time and my intents are savage-wild,
More fierce and more inexorable far
2975Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

Romeo. So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that:
Live, and be prosperous: and farewell, good fellow.

Balthasar. [Aside] For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout:
2980His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.

[Retires]

Romeo. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,
2985And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!

[Opens the tomb]

Paris. This is that banish'd haughty Montague,
That murder'd my love's cousin, with which grief,
It is supposed, the fair creature died;
2990And here is come to do some villanous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him.
[Comes forward]Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague!
Can vengeance be pursued further than death?
2995Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

Romeo. I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;
Fly hence, and leave me: think upon these gone;
3000Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head,
By urging me to fury: O, be gone!
By heaven, I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither arm'd against myself:
3005Stay not, be gone; live, and hereafter say,
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.

Paris. I do defy thy conjurations,
And apprehend thee for a felon here.

Paris. O, I am slain!
[Falls]3015If thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

[Dies]

Romeo. In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris!
3020What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode? I think
He told me Paris should have married Juliet:
Said he not so? or did I dream it so?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
3025To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave;
A grave? O no! a lantern, slaughter'd youth,
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
3030This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.
[Laying PARIS in the tomb]How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! which their keepers call
3035A lightning before death: O, how may I
Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
3040Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee,
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
3045To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous,
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
3050Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again: here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
3055Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
3060A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!
Here's to my love!
3065[Drinks]O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
[Dies][Enter, at the other end of the churchyard, FRIAR]3070LAURENCE, with a lantern, crow, and spade]

Balthasar. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

Friar Laurence. Romeo!
3095[Advances]Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?
3100[Enters the tomb]Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too?
And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance!
The lady stirs.
3105

[JULIET wakes]

Juliet. O comfortable friar! where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am. Where is my Romeo?

[Noise within]

Friar Laurence. I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep:
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
3115And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns:
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming;
Come, go, good Juliet,
[Noise again]3120I dare no longer stay.

Juliet. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.
[Exit FRIAR LAURENCE]What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
3125O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make die with a restorative.
[Kisses him]3130Thy lips are warm.

First Watchman. The ground is bloody; search about the churchyard:
Go, some of you, whoe'er you find attach.
Pitiful sight! here lies the county slain,
And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,
Who here hath lain these two days buried.
3145Go, tell the prince: run to the Capulets:
Raise up the Montagues: some others search:
We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry.
3150

Montague. O thou untaught! what manners is in this?
To press before thy father to a grave?

Prince Escalus. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
3190Till we can clear these ambiguities,
And know their spring, their head, their
true descent;
And then will I be general of your woes,
And lead you even to death: meantime forbear,
3195And let mischance be slave to patience.
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Friar Laurence. I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me of this direful murder;
3200And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned and myself excused.

Friar Laurence. I will be brief, for my short date of breath
Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
3205Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;
And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife:
I married them; and their stol'n marriage-day
Was Tybalt's dooms-day, whose untimely death
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from the city,
3210For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth'd and would have married her perforce
To County Paris: then comes she to me,
And, with wild looks, bid me devise some mean
3215To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,
A sleeping potion; which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her
3220The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo,
That he should hither come as this dire night,
To help to take her from her borrow'd grave,
Being the time the potion's force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
3225Was stay'd by accident, and yesternight
Return'd my letter back. Then all alone
At the prefixed hour of her waking,
Came I to take her from her kindred's vault;
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
3230Till I conveniently could send to Romeo:
But when I came, some minute ere the time
Of her awaking, here untimely lay
The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth,
3235And bear this work of heaven with patience:
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
All this I know; and to the marriage
3240Her nurse is privy: and, if aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.

Prince Escalus. We still have known thee for a holy man.
3245Where's Romeo's man? what can he say in this?

Balthasar. I brought my master news of Juliet's death;
And then in post he came from Mantua
To this same place, to this same monument.
This letter he early bid me give his father,
3250And threatened me with death, going in the vault,
I departed not and left him there.

Prince Escalus. Give me the letter; I will look on it.
Where is the county's page, that raised the watch?
Sirrah, what made your master in this place?
3255

Page. He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave;
And bid me stand aloof, and so I did:
Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb;
And by and by my master drew on him;
And then I ran away to call the watch.
3260

Prince Escalus. This letter doth make good the friar's words,
Their course of love, the tidings of her death:
And here he writes that he did buy a poison
Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
3265Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.
And I for winking at your discords too
Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd.
3270

Capulet. O brother Montague, give me thy hand:
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

Montague. But I can give thee more:
For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
3275That while Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Prince Escalus. A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
3285Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.